Down the road

The bucketeer

The day at the zoo had been entertaining to say the least between Jasper accidentally angering a gorilla with his poor impression of it and Piper arguing with a parrot in the bird's house.

The two friends were now walking in the fair area with ice cream in their hands, laughing about the other's performance with the animals.

"Oh look!" Said Piper pointing towards a game stand. "A bucket-in-one! I'm sure you would nail that game, Mr. Bucketeer!" She teased laughing at his side glare.

"Pips, you know I stopped collecting buckets in middle school." He answered with a smile.

"Yeah, what was your deal with buckets anyway? I never asked you back then." She asked intrigued.

Jasper sighed loudly before replying.

"It's kind of a long story."

"I have all the time in the world!" Piper answered before heading towards a bench nearby and patting the seat next to her.

Jasper knew there was no arguing with this girl so he joined her on said bench and got ready to tell her the story.

"Alright, when I was young I used to spend all my time at my grandma's place." he started.

Piper opened her mouth to ask a question but he answered before she could.

"No, not the one who thought I was useless, the other one." he said.

Piper nodded reassured.

"I loved my nana, she was the best. We loved gardening together, it was kind of our thing. And we always used buckets to do so for different reasons. Anyway, one day my grandma surprised me with a bucket of Captain man since she knew I was such a big fan."

Piper smiled at seeing his eyes sparkle at the memory.

"I loved that bucket so much, I almost slept with it!" he continued before losing his smile. "And one day, I arrived at my nana's and she immediately could tell I wasn't well. Things at home weren't so good."

Piper sombered up at that. Jasper had never talked much about how things were with his parents. The gang never realised how bad it actually was until Jasper turned 18...the same day he moved out of his parents' house. Everyone from the man cave had helped him move and Jasp had ordered pizza. She remembered Henry patting Jasper's back and telling him that it was official, he was now living on his own. They certainly weren't expecting Jasper to break down crying right in front of them. They had no idea how to react. Henry did his best to comfort his best friend. Charlotte was in shock. Schwoz was sad. Ray was angry. And Piper...Piper felt like her heart was breaking with every tears her friend was shedding. Jasper hadn't talked to his parents ever since and nobody blamed him even though they still didn't know exactly what happened.

"Um, nana then brought me my bucket with a pen and some paper and told me to write down all the things I was scared of or sad of and that she would read it all during the week and the next time I would be at her place, we would find solutions together...but..." he took a break as his voice cracked. "But during that week, nana fell and broke her hip. She was rushed to the hospital and my mom wouldn't let me go see her..." his eyes watered at that point. " Two days later she was gone."

Piper's hand went to her mouth as the boy in front of let out a sob. The boy took a big breath before continuing.

"My parents emptied nana's house soon after and I asked for my bucket but I never got it back. So the moment I managed to make some money, I used it to buy a new bucket and I filled it up with my fears just like nana had told me to and once it was full I bought another one and another one and so on."

"But...you bought so many buckets! You filled all of them up?" Piper asked concerned.

"Yep...until I realised it was useless because no one was gonna read their content anyway. That's when I decided to sell them all and hid the money to start saving up for an apartment." He finished.

There was a silence as Piper tried to process everything her friend just told her.

"I'm so sorry Jasper." she told him.

"Sorry for what? None of this is your fault." he answered.

"But I made fun of you back then for collecting buckets. I shouldn't have." she said mad at her self.

"You didn't know plus it was pretty weird collecting buckets, I'll admit that much." Jasper said chuckling.

Piper however didn't think any of this was funny. She couldn't believe he had kept all of that to himself. That made her wonder what else he never told her.